Your local independent all-volunteer radio station is KEOS, 89.1FM. But you already know that, since you are listening to one of the volunteers. And I bet you think I’m going to ask for money, but no, that was your idea. I only have four and a half minutes to say something useful for our future on this earth. But it’s a good idea, giving money, because the local stations are more important than most people know, and this is tough times.

Most people believe that your local independent radio station is mostly for fun, or for practice or listening to a great variety of music, but not so much as a source of reliable factual information. But you know, just for living every day and especially for building a better future, we need an enormous amount of reliable, fact-based information, and a lot of that information is being washed out of the corposystem media and replaced by their self-serving propaganda. Your local independent radio station has a number of programs that can give you different points of view and reliable facts about some the most important decisions you will be making in the coming years.

Of these programs, my favorites are “Sprouts” that airs at 6:30 on Sunday morning, and Alternative Radio on Monday at 7 pm. Bioneers radio airs practical biology on Saturday at 3 pm, and today I’ll give you an excerpt from Sierra Club Radio that you can listen to on Sunday mornings right before Sprouts. In addition to current news, Sierra Club Radio often airs helpful hints for green living. Each of these programs offers downloads at their web sites.

In this short excerpt, Bruce Niles is interviewed by Orley Cotell on the subject of Sierra Club’s campaign to clean up smog caused by coal burning power plants. The full podcast is linked in my blog transcript.

This little clip is part of an explanation of what the Sierra club plans to do with a pretty huge grant they recently received to clean up smog caused by coal fired power plants all across the United States. It begins with Orley Cotell asking the questions.

OC-“I’m curious if you can tell us what part coal-fired power plants play in creating smog, and how bad of a problem is it?”

BN-“Smog is a very serious problem in most every part of this country. There is an estimated 100 million Americans who live in cities and towns across this country where on many days of the year it is unsafe to breath, and so for example here in Washington in the month of July every single day was either a code yellow, orange or red. In the middle of summer it was unsafe to be outside in Washington DC. Coal plants are the largest contributor to that problem of ozone or smog pollution. So as we push to clean up power plants in the remaining fleet we should take a huge bite out of smog pollution and help to eliminate this huge smog problem that is literally afflicting 100 million Americans.”

OC- “I know that asthma in many cases can be exacerbated by smog or by coal pollution. How bad of a problem is that and what role can EPA play in cleaning it up?”

BN- “An asthma doctor described the impact of smog pollution this way. If you can imagine sunburn on your lungs, which is what happens when ozone or smog, which is very acid gets deep down in your lungs and literally sears your lungs. So when someone who already has lung problems, such as someone with asthma, smog can actually send them into asthma attacks and they can end up with pretty serious medical problems. Smog is the number one trigger for asthma attacks.”